Join us for a visit with some of our favorite authors whose books we love to read and share with everyone. You'll get to hear from authors who've become friends over the years, authors we're just discovering, and lots of prizes and books to win!

Pages

Monday, September 29, 2014

Feels Like Home – by Dani Collins

I’m a small
town girl at heart. I grew up on ten acres that had been logged and farmed by
my father’s Finnish grandparents. There were three houses on the property. My
grandparents lived in one, we lived in another, and the ‘little house’ closest
to the road was a rental.

My mom
planted a garden every year, my dad had cows and pigs and chickens and ducks,
and my grandmother made a trip ‘up country’ to the Okanagan a couple of times a
year for canning fruit. Canned pears with a piece of toast is a trigger food
for me, turning me six years old again, sitting at her yellow table, the
specific cadence of my grandfather’s accent fresh in my ears.

I climbed
apple trees and got shouted at for eating raspberries and related easily to
Laura Ingles Wilder and Ann of Green Gables. We were a shade more modern. We
eventually got cable TV, but fancy things like bought bread were for other
people, not us.

My husband
had a similar experience, mucking out chicken and rabbit pens, helping his dad
clear their property, living very rural so a trip into town was Going Into
Town.

By the time
we married, however, our little town had become a thriving suburb of a busy
urban center. The mountains and river were still very pretty, but the traffic
was appalling, the drug users were infiltrating, and the cost of real estate
was so high it was a non-stop rat race to make the mortgage payment. When our
kids came along, we knew we wanted for them what we had had.

So we
loaded up the car and drove for eight hours, until we found a town that has a
stunning lake, a school house of a hundred kids, and a year round population of
fifteen hundred. It’s twenty minutes from ‘town’, and that town is only five
thousand people. It was built on mining money, so the municipal hall has a
clock tower like the one in Back To The Future.

Are there
drawbacks? You bet. You really learn the difference between want and need when buying
something means a three-hour drive to the nearest city.

But the
sense of community is worth any of those little inconveniences. The pace of
life is calmer. And because you know everyone--your neighbors and your kids’
teachers and the ladies at the bank--you can’t help but feel safe.

I love
small town living. I didn’t realize quite how much until I began writing my
first Montana Born novella, Hometown Hero. Chase Goodwin is a local ballplayer
who made it to the Majors. His goal all through high school was to escape
Marietta, but he has a younger half-brother he comes home to help and bumps
into Skye—the girl he didn’t let himself want because he knew she was a lifer.

Skye gets
it. She’s small town to her quiet-living core. She knew Chase was out of her
league even before he made it to the big one, but when he comes back for a
visit, they strike sparks off each other and wind up with some hard decisions.
Small town isn’t for everyone, especially when a career is at stake.

How do you
feel about small towns? Are you drawn to a faster city pace or do you prefer a
quieter life? Do you have any special small town memories from your early
years?

Hometown Hero:

**SPECIAL INTRODUCTORY PRICE – 99c – SEPTEMBER 29th & 30th, 2014**

Skye
Wolcott planned to marry, have children, and live happy ever after in her
hometown of Marietta, Montana. Then her
marriage imploded in a cloud of scandal. Now she’d be happy if people would
just stop talking about her.

Chase
Goodwin worked hard to get away from Marietta, where poverty colored his past.
Living his dream as a major league baseball player, he has no reason to return
beyond helping his half-brother escape as successfully. The last thing Chase
would consider is staying.

Then he
sees Skye Wolcott, a girl he always had a thing for in high school. They get
off to a rough start, but are soon carrying on like high schoolers. Chase wants her to join his fast-paced,
larger than life world, but Skye’s a small town girl at heart. Can she convince
him that Homecoming is more than a game,

and he’s
back where he belongs?

Here's an excerpt:

If he had
come to apologize, she was going to tell him where to shove it.

This had
been the worst day of her life, worse even than when Terry came out. Then, at
least, she’d been the wronged party. Today people were asking, What were you thinking? Even Terry had
defended stupid Chase Goodwin. He’s not a
homophobe, Skye. I, uh, think he always knew I had a bit of a crush on him. He
was really decent about it.

She had not
needed to know her ex-husband had shared her crush on the town treasure.

“I’m not
interested in talking to you,” she said to Chase, glancing anxiously toward the
open door of the counselor’s office, where Brenda had left to fetch a student,
then the firmly closed door of the principal’s office, where he was meeting
with the VP and one of the trustees.

She didn’t
know which was worse, having witnesses to this confrontation or not.

Chase
leaned on the counter exactly the way the students did, like they wanted to
order ice cream or a beer. “Maybe you can ask someone else to help me, then,”
he said without emotion.

He looked
insanely attractive, freshly shaved, lightly tanned, his dark brows stern above
his intent green eyes, his mouth a sexy male pout that would make any female
swoon.

“I need the
parent volunteer forms so I can drive students and help with school events,” he
added.

Take that, Skye. As if he’d come here special to
see you. Like he owed you an apology.

Her throat
stung and she feared she might be blushing. Rising, she turned away to open a
drawer in the filing cabinet behind her, willing her composure back into place
as she took her time fingering through and tugging out the forms. When she
turned back, Chase’s eyes swiftly lifted to clash into hers.

Had he—?

Her butt
tingled and her stomach swooped. Don’t, she thought. The last thing she needed
was to start imagining he’d been checking her out. Hot and hating herself for
it, she set the forms on the counter near his elbow.

“I need a
copy of your driver’s license,” she told him.

He reached
into his back pocket, the move drawing her eye to the way his T-shirt strained
across his shoulders and pecs. Dear Lord, he was beautifully built. Were men
allowed to have lean muscles like that without carrying a license for them as
deadly weapons?

He offered
the card in two fingers. Something in the way he did it made her lift her eyes
to his. His brows went up ever so slightly.

He’d
noticed her checking him out.

Kill. Me.
Now.

She
snatched the card from his grip and boiled with self-consciousness as she
turned her back on him to make the copy. If he was looking at her backside
again—but why would he? She didn’t want him to, did she?

What was
she doing with her life that she was going off the rails like this? She was
basically a happy person. She didn’t have self-destructive thoughts so why
would she long for a spark between her and someone who would devastate her in
all the ways Terry hadn’t? It was crazy. Literally not sane or logical.

She took
the photocopy to her desk and slapped it into her In tray, refusing to look at
his photo even though she was dying to. She’d finish processing this later,
after he’d filled out the forms. Sitting down, she set her fingers on her
keyboard, determined to carry on with her day and be normal.

He
continued to stand at the counter, watching her expectantly.

“What?” she
demanded.

“Can I have
my driver’s license back?”

Oh for God’s sake. Blushing hard, she shot to her
feet so fast her chair rolled back into the filing cabinet with a crash. Get a
grip, Skye. She scooped the card from under the lid of the copier and when she
slapped it on the counter, she only dared lift her gaze high enough to see he
was biting back a rueful grin.

“Look, I
know my being who I am made this worse—”

“Oh, no, my
life is great,” she snarked, managing to keep her tone a level under shrill. “Isn’t
it everyone’s dream these days to be an internet sensation? Give the forms to
Max when you’ve filled them out. He can leave them in my tray.” Never come back here again, she willed
him.

Then felt
inexplicably sad, but honestly. This fixation needed to be carved out of her
psyche and cryogenically frozen for a future generation to deal with.

“Hey, I
didn’t post that clip. And for the record, I was being sarcastic last night. I
know you can’t turn people gay.”

“Sure about
that?” she shot back, once again finding herself pushing back for the simple
reason that he had the gall to say to her what no one else had. “Wanna put it
to the test?”

“I’d love
to.”

The smoky
look in his eyes, the deeply male timbre in his tone, crashed over her like a
tropical wave, softening her bones and put a tickling feeling deep in the pit
of her belly. A type of yearning.

One that
was beyond misguided. Look who he was. He was mocking her. Had to be. Probably
because he wasn’t any happier than she was about the way she’d embarrassed him.

“That’s not
funny,” she told him. “It’s mean.” And then, because the backs of her eyes were
sizzling, she went into Brenda’s office and shut the door.

“Skye!” he
called.

She heard a
door open and the principal spoke to him, asking if he was looking for her.
After a brief exchange, everything went silent, but she continued to hide,
bunching a tissue that she dabbed to keep her makeup under control, until
Brenda came back and needed her office.